About

Sailing Toward Osiris

$39,389

pledged of $25,000 goal

617

backers

Pharaoh is dead and his funerary barge sails slowly down the Nile toward his tomb where his spirit will stand before the judgement of Osiris. With no heirs, tradition holds that the governor to bury the Pharaoh will become the next ruler, and in order to gain the privilege of interring the late king, the governors compete to build monuments to Pharaoh's glory so that Osiris will favor his spirit in the afterlife.

Sailing Toward Osiris is a worker placement game for 2-5 players where you and your friends will be gathering resources, using favors from the gods, and utilizing citizen powers to build monuments on the River Nile. Not only must you use your actions wisely, you must also time them for the most efficient play. Gain bonus points for building a monument next to the Pharaoh's barge. Or build your monuments in certain configurations to get bonus points at the end of the game.

The game is played over 4 seasons and each season the Pharaoh's barge moves closer to Osiris and the end of the game. You can build monuments anywhere on the board, but you receive bonus points for building a monument next to Pharaoh's barge.

At the start of each season, player's draw laborers from a bag and hide the laborers behind their player screen. Then, a certain number of laborers are added to the laborer pool for hiring during the season.

Each season, players take short, one-action turns, around-and-around until everyone withdraws from the season. On your turn, you may take 1 of the following actions:

Harvest Resources by placing a laborer on a terrain space and gaining all the resources shown. Basic laborers may only be placed on terrain spaces that touch the river segment where the Pharaoh's barge is currently located or where the barge has already been. Master laborers can be placed on any terrain space.

Visit a City by placing any laborer on any city space on the board. Draw 2 city cards, keep 1, and give 1 to any other player. There are no bad city cards and other players are encouraged to bribe you to get the card.

Lead or Join a Caravan by placing your laborer on a caravan space and immediately gaining the resources noted. If you are the first player on a caravan space each season, you also place your camel token there to signify that you are the caravan leader. When another player places a laborer on the other half of your caravan space, she gets the noted resources but has to pay one of them to you, as leader.

Hire an Extra Laborer by paying any 2 resources to the labor pool to gain 1 laborer from the labor pool.

Trade at the Market by paying one of the resource sets noted on a market cartouche to receive the other resource set.

Plan a Monument by paying the resources shown in one monument planning cartouche and placing your appropriate monument token on the cartouche used. While your monument token is on a planning cartouche no other player may plan a monument on that particular cartouche.

Build a Monument by moving one of your monuments from a planning cartouche to a valid map position on the board. Gain points for building the monument immediately and a bonus point for building on a section that is touching the river segment where the Pharaoh's barge is currently located. You'll gain bonus points for achieving certain monument configurations on the map at the end of the game.

Play a City Card by discarding it. You may either gather the resources shown in the cartouche on the card or use the power written on the card.

Play a Boon Card by playing it face-up in front of you. You can only play one card per season, and it may not be a boon card that another player has already played in the same season.

Withdraw from the Season by placing your withdraw token in front of your player screen. If you are the first to withdraw, place your withdraw token on a Regent cartouche on the board to receive the bonuses shown and become the first player for the next season.

Free-form bartering and bribery are encouraged, but not required, as you work to amass the most Glory Points through timely actions, efficient resource use, and careful monument placement.

We are very happy to announce that Schwerkraft-Verlag, Pixie Games, and Crazy Pawn Games will be joining us on this print run to make Sailing Toward Osiris available in German, French and Spanish in the EU.

For your convenience, you'll be able to select the English, French, German, or Spanish version of Sailing Toward Osiris on the post-funding survey.

The more followers we get, the more Social Stretch Goals we'll unlock! The goal's below will be based on the aggregate of Facebook and Twitter followers, and Fans on BGG. We currently have: 4,006 Followers.

We like to support game stores around the world by offering the Kickstarter versions of our games to retailers during the campaign. We know money can be tight for retailers, so the amount you pledge today is only a deposit + shipping on the full amount. We'll send you an invoice for the remainder before we ship your rewards. We treat retailer backers just like other backers in that they receive their rewards before we release the regular retail versions into distribution, giving you a head start on your competition. You can see the Retailer 6-Pack pledge level in the right-side column of this project page.

Every game we create is a discrete project with its own development schedule and it's own budget of production and marketing expenses. We bring each project to Kickstarter to give you, our fans and supporters, the opportunity to help us put the final touches on the game and to reserve your copies at the time it will do the game the most good, both financially and creatively.

Some say that a creator should not launch a new project until their previous project is completed and delivered. That system might work for a designer who is self-publishing a game, but for an up-and-coming company like Daily Magic Games, that system is not viable. At any point in time we are working on a dozen projects in various stages of completion. Right now, for example...

We're hoping that our track record for successfully completing and delivering previous projects will give you the confidence to support Sailing Toward Osiris, and that the forthright communications we present when projects do hit snags will assuage any fears that we're going to screw it all up.

ManaSurge delivered one month late in June 2016 and is currently sold out, though you may find some copies still in stores.

Villages of Valeria delivered 4 months late due to production and fulfillment delays. Logistical and scheduling issues at the fulfillment hub caused more delays in EU countries. We've taken steps to not use that fulfillment hub ever again.

Daily Magic Games is a designer-friendly and customer-focused publisher specializing in casual tabletop games that are easy to learn and play, yet layered with strategy and depth.

Isaias Vallejo, Wizard-in-Chief, Game Designer, and Developer

David MacKenzie, Conjurer and Game Developer

Levi Mote, Alchemist, Game Designer, and Developer

Sarah Sharp, Enchantress and Convention Event Planner

Dylan Pharaoh-Whitney, Sorcerer and Graphic Designer

Claire Donaldson, Illusionist, Illustrator, and Graphic Designer

We are focused on listening to what our customers have to say and making sure that we are producing the type of games you want at the high quality you demand. We are actively involved in the Comments section of each Kickstarter and keep backers up to date with plenty of updates post-Kickstarter. We like to make casual and gateway games in an effort to get more people to the table. Our games are easy to learn to help new players get in to the game faster, but they're also layered with strategy for the more seasoned players.

We're based out of Seattle, Washington and like to focus on the growth and promotion of game design in the Pacific Northwest. We've even started a playtesting event network called PlaytestNW to help local designers meet each other and engage with playtesters on a regular basis. Our hope is that we're helping designers build better games.

Risks and challenges

Daily Magic Games is committed to delivering quality products on time. We realize that the publication of a board game can be complicated and, no matter how experienced the project creators and mangers are, some problems may occur. In an effort to reduce the likelihood of delays and mistakes, we have taken several steps to prepare for success:

1. This game project, as well as the Kickstarter campaign itself, are in the hands of two well-seasoned professionals. David MacKenzie has been running successful Kickstarter projects since 2010 (Alien Frontiers started the gaming frenzy on Kickstarter), and Isaias Vallejo comes from a digital games background as Executive Producer at Big Fish Games and has designed several successful board games (Sunrise City, Valeria: Card Kingdoms, Valeria: Card Kingdoms - Flames & Frost, Villages of Valeria, and Quests of Valeria).

2. We are dedicated to backer communication and feedback. Throughout every campaign, we are as transparent about the process and as open to feedback as possible without jeopardizing production and delivery timelines. Whether the news is good or bad, you can expect us to report it honestly and openly.

3. We have done significant pre-production. All the art and graphic design for Sailing Toward Osiris are completed with the exception of the stretch goals content. The art and design for the stretch goals content has been sketched out and is ready to push forward as soon as each goal is achieved.

4. We have our manufacturer lined up and ready to begin the pre-press process as soon as the files are delivered. We hope that everything goes as planned, but if something falls through the cracks, we are ready and willing to employ every tool at our disposal to get the project back on track and running smoothly.

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Retailer – Sailing Toward Osiris 6-Pack

English Only.

Your pledge here is a deposit on 6 copies of Sailing Toward Osiris and 6 copies of the Deluxe Expansion Pack. You will be billed an additional $175 when we're ready to ship out the rewards. Your full cost will be $180 (60% off MSRP) plus shipping.

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Deluxe Plus – Sailing Toward Osiris

Choose English, French, or German in the post-funding survey.

In addition to the regular rewards of the Deluxe level delivered in Feb 2018, you will also receive one of the 10 reviewer prototype copies of Sailing Toward Osiris (English) mailed to you by the end of May, 2017 so you can start playing STO right away.